Living Pixels
Winning 2nd place 3D/4D in Cal Poly’s 2026 Juried Student Show, Living Pixels takes a live image feed and frame-by-frame changes each pixel’s color to the color of a random neighboring pixel. Each rendered image is then fed back into the program in a loop, making each pixel look like it is alive.
My goal was to write a set of rules and let them run; to define the boundaries and the means by which my code will distort the images, but to ultimately allow the code to create an output I couldn’t fully predict or control.
Racecars at Sonoma Raceway.
Seeing Motion
Living Pixels is able to detect motion with a secondary program that is looking for pixel differences between the current frame and the previous frame that meet a threshold set by the user. Pixels that meet the threshold difference are added directly on top of the current render, essentially allowing moving objects to be visible through the noise. But, as soon as these objects slow down or stop, their forms blend back into abstraction.
Interacting with living pixels
The inclusion of the live camera input and the motion detection are there to make this effect visible and engaging to viewers in real time, giving viewers a way to interact with the distortion while still having no control over the final output. Imagine Living Pixels on a huge screen installation where the camera is pointed at the viewers, who can see themselves becoming abstracted if they stay still too long.
People on Kirby Beach with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
Living Pixels on display at Cal Poly’s 2026 Juried Student Show
Try it yourself below!
Living Pixels
Created by Josh Hakman for ART-315: Art History Since 1945.